


Gets Better

by sweetiejelly



Category: As the World Turns
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-10
Updated: 2011-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-25 21:46:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetiejelly/pseuds/sweetiejelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke feels adrift until he comes across a video, one with a very important message.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gets Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carolinablu85](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinablu85/gifts).



> This is written super belatedly for the lovely Ella. She gave me this beautiful prompt of Noah making an "It Gets Better" campaign video and Luke finding it. I hope this is okay, Ella. And a belated happy, happy birthday to you! ♥

Luke feels adrift, like maybe he’s been adrift for a while. He’s got his foundation, it’s true. He’s got his family. Yesterday he even got to take old Sugar out for a ride, her mane slapping rough against his skin as she galloped across the farm.

“What am I doing?” He asked her when they rounded back to the barn. She answered with a soft snort, nudging her muzzle against his hand and batting her lashes for a treat.

He’d given her apple pieces. He takes an apple now from a bowl in the kitchen and rubs it against his shirt. _An apple a day keeps the…_ He bites down hard into the juicy flesh. He can’t keep doing this. He has to move on.

Everyone else has. Katie and Chris can’t stop talking about their baby or taking picture of their baby or showing said pictures to everyone. Dr. Bob is spoiling Kim silly with midday dates, sundaes and strolls, sweet nothings whispered in her ears that make her laugh. Even Holden and Lily seem to be reconciling, much to the eye rolls of Faith.

And Noah – Noah is out there in L.A., directing and making movies like he always dreamed of. Like he’s told Luke he wanted to since the beginning. Luke could hear him still, how the love was always there, how the confidence grew. Self deprecating, oh-I-hope-I’ll-be-good-enough-one-day talks turned into concrete plans. That’s his Noah, always with a plan.

Luke misses him more than he wants to admit. The bed is colder without him there, his days a lot quieter. Absentmindedly, he boots up his laptop. And there, coming into focus, Noah smiles at him from the wallpaper. Then the screen flashes and Reid’s staring at him, half a scowl on like some uniform. Luke takes a deep breath and closes the lid. It’s too early for heartache.

He makes himself some coffee, dumping a good deal of sugar in. He could hear Noah teasing him about losing all his teeth by fifty. Yeah, well, at least that will be fifty years well lived, he’d argued. And then fifty years on dentures, Noah had shot back. “I just want you around, that’s all, for a long, long time.” And Noah had kissed him. And Luke had kissed him back, sweet on the lips, sweet in the heart. Noah was always surprising him like that, with how much he was able to say for someone who had no words, with how much he was able to love for someone who got so little of it growing up.

Luke sighs. So he loved and lost. And loved and lost again. What’s a guy to do? _Maybe not completely lost_ , a voice says, nagging the way voices do. _Noah invited you to visit him in L.A. whenever you’re ready_. “I’m not ready,” Luke grumbles to himself as he sinks down to the sofa.

He opens up a browser window and full-screens it so he doesn’t have to look at the background. Mindlessly, he scrolls through his emails. Casey forwarded him another one of those jokes that was too crass for him to share with Alison. Alison sent him an evite for a New Year’s party. Maddie Facebook-messaged him back about that cute guy down the hall. Apparently gorgeous mystery girl was his roommate from college in town for a wedding party. But on the other hand, if he’s that upfront about the fact, then that’s a good sign, right? Maybe?

He clicks on the last unread email. Ameera Twitter-messaged him a link. She didn’t elaborate (as per usual) so Luke clicks out of curiosity. He’s gotten many a chuckle from her links. Turned out girl had a sense of humor. Who knew?

This link takes him to YouTube, to one of those _It Gets Better_ campaign videos. Luke had seen a few of the celebrity ones. Idly, he wonders as it loads whose this is, if it’s some guy Ameera has a crush on.

He almost chokes on his coffee when Noah’s face appears on the screen. Noah looks good. A plain white shirt drapes across his chest like it’s made for hugging, intimate hugging.

“Hi,” Noah waves dorkily at the screen. “I’m Noah Mayer. I’m-uh, I’m usually on the other end of the camera,” he gestures as he smiles shyly and wets his lips.

Luke hits the pause button and takes a breath. What the hell. The video’s been up two days and this is the first he’s hearing of it? Also, it’s already gotten five hundred hits? A mix of pride and envy punches him in the stomach.

He hits play again. Noah unfreezes and ducks his head down to look at something out of range for a moment, like he’s psyching himself up. Luke looks at Noah’s eyelashes, at those lips he knows so well and tears his eyes away. He looks behind Noah instead, trying to figure out where the video was filmed. Is that Noah’s _bedroom_? But then Noah’s looking straight at the camera and Luke can’t help looking back.

“I grew up with a homophobic father, uh-military. He was a decorated Colonel, highly respected. And he was all I had. I thought his world was-was _it_ , was all I could have. I was afraid to lose him,” Noah swallows around these admissions and Luke flashes back to the boy he knew. He reached out back then and he still wants to now. Luke touches a thumb to the screen, a thumb to Noah’s cheek.

“I wanted, more than anything else in the world, to make him proud of me. I thought if I could just do _one_ thing right, if I could just try a little harder to control what I felt or-or who I am.” Noah bit his lip. “But then I met this guy -” Noah smiles then, a light in his eyes, “- this absolutely _amazing_ guy – this talented writer with a big, big heart, a beautiful heart. Well, beautiful everything.” Noah blushes adorably red. “He kissed me back. And he yelled at me when I lied to him, to myself. I… kinda did that a lot. But he-he held my hand and made me feel safe. He made me feel like I’m not alone and that I _can_ be anything I wanted to be, even a director.” Noah lifts a side of his lips lazily, sexily. Luke doesn’t think Noah’s even aware of that. Five hundred hits. No wonder.

Noah’s still talking, the sexy timbre of his voice magnifying the thump-thump-thump of Luke’s heart. “And he was right. He was _my_ personal ‘it gets better’ video. He kept repeating and repeating it until I believed him. He’s uh…a bit stubborn that way,” Noah smiles fondly. “But he’s also the reason I’m living my dream,” Noah’s voice dips into contemplative before it turns light again, as if the note of sad was never there. “So, while – quite unfortunately, I can’t clone him for every one of you out there, I do want to pass on the message: it gets better. A _lot_ better. I’m proof of that.” Noah holds out his arms and the camera pans out, Noah’s room on full display. There on the walls are his movie posters – glam and mystique and classic romance. There on his desk are framed photos of them – Luke snuggled into Noah’s arms, Noah kissing Luke’s cheek, the two of them grinning at each other like no one else exists.

Luke stares at the screen as it fades to black, as links of various organizations that can help pop up in crisp focus, including one he knows well: Luke Snyder Foundation, Oakdale, Illinois.

He hits replay.

~~

Noah looks at the draft of his text message and backs out of ‘Send’ once more. He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous about this. It’s hardly the first time he’s shown Luke one of his efforts. And who’s to say Luke hasn’t already found it himself? It’s online, on YouTube!

Still, this is personal. This is the most personal video he’s ever made – not counting the one where he and Luke… well, but they deleted that after a mutual decision, after Luke caught Ethan in his room, randomly pulling out desk drawers.

Anyway, _this_ one, this one makes him more nervous. Noah hopes that telling the truth (or most of it) helps someone out there, helps some kid who is just as scared and lonely as he was. He hopes it’s the right thing to do. He hopes Luke won’t hate it, won’t hate _him_ for including him in the picture. Because in Noah’s heart, Luke is _always_ in the picture.

~~

Warm. That’s the first thing Luke registers. L.A. is a lot warmer than Oakdale this time of the year. He loosens the scarf from around his neck and takes in the scenery. It’s not that much different, in a way. Christmas lights coil tight around trees. Festive red bows and green garlands hang high and pretty on display. It’s that time of the year.

Luke could almost smell the spirit in the air. Or at least he could smell the air freshener hanging cinnamon-y in the cab.

He’s nervous but determined. He _has_ to do this. After playing Noah’s video five hundred times in a row (give or take), he knew what he had to do.

Still, he takes a deep breath when he’s finally standing in front of Noah’s door. Thanks to Noah’s video, he knows what the interior looks like. He knows especially what Noah looks like – the longer curl of his hair, the way his skin has gotten more tanned despite winter, the light scruff along his jaw.

Even so, the multiple viewings did not compare to the real thing, to Noah standing in front of him in a simple blue tee and nondescript sweatpants, looking so tall and beautiful and surprised, so happy.

“Luke!” Noah’s grin swallows him up the same time Noah’s arms wrap around him. “Hi!” Luke feels all the nerves evaporate as he hugs back, hands tentative then firm over the broad back, over warm muscles pressed deliciously against him.

“Hi, I saw your video!” Luke doesn’t mean to blurt this out right away. But now that he has, he can’t stop. “It’s not right, Noah. That’s why I’m here. I-”

“At least come in?” Noah sighs, his shoulder slumped. “You can yell at me inside, in private.”

“No, that’s not –” Luke makes a frustrated noise and pulls Noah’s face down to kiss him. “You don’t understand.”

Noah stares at him, his eyebrows knit in confusion, before he dives in and kisses Luke back. “Obviously.” Noah kisses him again, hands cradling Luke’s face and Luke _wants_ , wants all of this back, wants _them_ back.

“Wait,” Luke pulls them apart and pants against Noah’s neck. Noah’s pretty, pretty neck. _No, no, focus_. “I love your video, Noah. It’s honest. It’s _you_ and it’s doing a lot of good if the number of hits is any indication. But it’s not perfect. You know why?”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Noah rubs a hand over his face. “I should have asked for your permission first and –”

“What? No.” Luke takes in the small living room slash kitchen slash breakfast nook. His eyes land on an open door. Instantly, he recognizes the bedroom from the video. Luke walks in and picks up the photos. “ _These_ , Noah.” He holds them up. “Don’t you think anyone could have PhotoShopped these? I should have been here with you. Your camera should have panned over to _me_.”

Noah’s throat works, dry swallows as he looks at Luke and lifts a shoulder. “You weren’t here.”

Luke sets down the photos carefully, taking his time. “I know. But I’m here now.” He sits on Noah’s bed and pats the space beside him. He waits until Noah’s sitting too and turns to smile at him, just a little smile, hopeful.

“I loved your video, Noah. I really did.” Luke takes Noah’s hand, tracing along the life line, the love line the way he used to do. “I was… stuck. Sort of numbed by grief, you know? I stopped doing all these things that I loved – playing basketball, writing... And then some handsome guy shows up on my screen and tells me that it gets better.”

Noah ducks his head and smiles.

And Luke can’t help but smile with him. “And he’s not acting or being clever. He’s just speaking from his heart. And I believed him. And I was reminded of why I loved him. Of why I – I love you, Noah.”

Noah presses his lips to Luke’s, tender, lingering until Luke could feel the kiss in his heart. “Same here.”

~~

Noah’s second _It Gets Better_ video garners even more hits. Luke thinks it’s because he’s in it. He thinks it’s because he wrote the script for it. And most important, Luke thinks it’s because he kisses Noah in it.

“Gotta give the audience what they want, huh?” Noah teases him as they settle in under the blankets.

“Damn straight!” Luke loops his arms around Noah’s neck.

“Um… _not_ so straight.” Noah wrinkles his nose, impossibly cute.

And Luke doesn’t argue. He feels the steady weight of Noah sweet on him and smiles into their kiss. Those videos are right. Life gets better. Life gets so much better.


End file.
